


All Bound Around You

by fromelsewhere



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Bleak, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:24:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromelsewhere/pseuds/fromelsewhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the distant future, Bond is a disgraced war hero exiled to a life of solitude on a planet no one's heard of. Q is a robot sent to aid him in his work.</p>
<p>"Sometimes he’ll count the new wrinkles around his eyes and swallow the urge to split them open, just to make sure he can still bleed. Sometimes he’ll just listen to the absence of sound and take a minute to remember: this is mercy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Bound Around You

**Author's Note:**

> I came across [this](http://grymoireart.tumblr.com/post/36740461425/entirely-the-fault-of-fishnbacon-and-her) adorable fanart and recalled [an episode of The Twilight Zone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_\(The_Twilight_Zone\)), twisted things a lot, and stayed up all night to start this. I know where it's going and I know it'll be long(ish), I'm just not sure of exactly how long yet.
> 
> I would love to hear your thoughts, either here or on [my tumblr](http://limerenced.tumblr.com/).
> 
> (This is my first story on here - it's also my first published thing in five years, so I'm sure I've done multiple things wrong.)

They gave up naming the planets after the first dozen or so were found; no more ‘Cressida’ or ‘Septimus’, merely ‘Planet 4AF23’ and so forth. Understandable, perhaps, given the new skies were simply teeming with habitable planets. Besides, astronomers are dreamers, at their core, and government officials are … less so. But disheartening, nonetheless; all these beautiful new worlds, reduced to numbers, like so many files being shuffled around a desk.  
  
It’s almost funny how no matter how big the universe gets - no matter how much space there is - there’s always someone wanting to take it from everyone else. Funny, until you think about all the blood spilled for glorified turf wars. Commander James Bond of the UEF thinks about that sometimes; he has nothing but time to think about it. He wonders if he was on the right side of the war - or if there was a right side at all. Not that it matters now - he’s being punished just the same.  
  
Planet 8FB57. He calls it Leiter, after someone he used to know (some nights he still wakes up silently screaming, feeling the slick of Felix’s blood dripping down his arms). It’s been his home - his exile - since the end of the war. It’s not much on the surface, just vacant stretches of empty plain in every direction. It’s what’s beneath that’s precious - it’s what’s beneath that makes this assignment an honour worthy of a war hero of his _calibre_. He’s supposedly there to protect it, but really, he’s just a babysitter.  
  
It’s far more mercy than he deserves.  
  
///  
  
All the days on Leiter pass in much the same way. Bond’s computer keeps track of dates, but there are no weekends in war, and while the rest of the universe has moved on, this little corner is stuck.  
  
He wakes at dawn. The days last a little longer here, which bothered him in the beginning - but then, plenty bothered him in the beginning. Over years his silent complaints have faded, like a rock on the shore, it’s bumps and dents worn smooth by the relentless push of nature.  
  
So, he wakes at dawn, without complaint, to a sun that’s more orange than yellow-white. He showers and shaves, because going through the motions is better than not going through the motions; that would feel a lot like giving up. Sometimes he’ll pause, half-smooth, half-lathered, to stare; he’ll count the new wrinkles around his eyes and swallow the urge to split them open, just to make sure he can still bleed. Sometimes he’ll just listen to the absence of sound and take a minute to remember: this is mercy.  
  
Once he’s in his uniform, he sits down to check in; early morning on Leiter is mid-morning on Earth. Even if there’s nothing to say, he still has to say it; still has people to answer to. There’s always a knot in the base of his stomach, a knot of anticipation - of what, he’s never sure.  
  
“Designation eight Foxtrot Bravo five seven, come in Earth, over.”  
  
“This is Earth base, go ahead, over.”  
  
“All fine on my front, Earth. Nothing to report, over.”  
  
“Acknowledged, eight Foxtrot, nothing to report here either. Over and out.”  
  
And then it’ll be silence again; silence as he eats, as he reads, as he checks the outputs and dials. There was a time when he craved it, craved a moment’s reprieve; now it’s like he’s gotten every moment he ever longed for, lined up on an endless loop.  
  
It could be worse it could be worse it could be worse _this is mercy_.  
  
///  
  
The planets were discovered slowly, at first. Bond was still a new recruit, then; back when each country had their own set of military forces, and all of those forces were caught up in a war no one wanted to call World War Three. Hardly anyone was paying attention to space - the battles were at home, on soil that was owned and understood.  
  
Eventually, a few dots were connected, and in a rush, in a flurry, almost overnight - the war changed. The fight changed. It wasn’t home soil that mattered, but new soil, dozens of billions of kilometres away, soil with resources the Earth had long since run out of. Battlelines and alliances were redrawn. Everything shifted.  
  
///  
  
His only break comes once every six months, when a contingent from home base comes to check on the stock. He lives his life in twice annual cycles; the build-up, the release, the precious moments of respite before it all begins again. It almost doesn’t matter who comes, really; the faces change, occasionally - well, the ones in the background do. The foreground is always the same: Captain Gareth Mallory. He is Bond’s direct superior. Or at least, he is now.  
  
Bond doesn’t consciously count the days, but the routine is programmed into him at this point. Even if it’s not directly on his mind, it’s as if his body knows; building the tension in his chest as it circles closer. It’s no longer a surprise when the morning exchange includes an extra line, reminding him to be ready for the following day’s inspection.  
  
In all honesty, it was never a surprise. He just wanted it to be.  
  
The morning of the twenty-third visit is like any other; Bond wakes, he showers, he shaves. He skips transmission, because it doesn’t happen on inspection days. He has breakfast. He sits on the porch outside his cottage, a book spread open on one knee, and waits.  
  
Inspection days are the only days he doesn’t actually get any reading done; his muscles are too tight, his mind too busy. They come like clockwork, almost to the second, but he’s always tense.  
  
He hears them long moments before he sees them; he used to time it, but now he just counts the seconds under his breath (warming his voice up so it doesn’t scratch and break when he greets them). When the ship appears on the horizon, his count begins again, quieter this time, as if they could hear him up in the sky, over the engines.  
  
He doesn’t rush to greet them; he takes his time climbing to his feet, rolling his body up to straighten his spine. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his uniform and saunters across the dirt; the ground is already hot enough that it radiates through his boots, warming the soles of his feet. But he doesn’t run, he doesn’t scurry - unlike those descending from the ship. Even from here he recognises them all. Captain Mallory. Midshipmen Tanner and Moneypenny. They’ve been before; looked at him with that mixture of awe and pity, like they’re not sure which emotion should be dominant. He understands - he sees the same look in the mirror, sometimes.  
  
The four meet in the middle of the empty stretch between the cottage, the ship and the mine; a triangle of temporary marks in an ever-lasting wasteland.  
  
“Bond.”  
  
“Captain,” Bond replies, his salute so perfect as to almost be mocking. “Moneypenny. Tanner.”  
  
“Let’s see the mine, then,” Mallory says, brisk as ever.  
  
Bond leads the way; this is, after all, his domain. They barely speak. Mallory inspects, the other two take notes. Bond stands back and tries to think of something witty to say, some bit of slick charm left to hold them here for a little longer. Nothing comes.  
  
Nothing comes and fifteen minutes later they’re gone.  
  
///  
  
It’s the twenty-fourth visit that’s the special one; it’s on the twenty-fourth visit that he gets Q.


End file.
